Any microelectronic and electrical system, equipment or device can be damaged by electrostatic discharge. There are two different categories of ESD damage, catastrophic damage and latent damage. Devices that undergo catastrophic damage are instantly destroyed at the time of an ESD event, while devices that undergo latent damage have been weakened by an ESD event that may lead to future failures.
In conjunction with other ESD precautions, an ESD wrist strap—an antistatic device used to safely ground a user working on electric equipment is commonly used when servicing hardware to prevent static electricity on the user's body which can result in ESD. The wrist straps are often placed in inconvenient locations surrounding the equipment to be serviced and may not function properly.